Watch it at Amazon
15 out of 21 people found the following review useful: Impetuous, easy-going and very enjoyable spy picture…, 21 April 2005 Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Not only did "Across the Pacific" add some brightness to Bogart's rising stature as an actor, it more than justified the promise shown by director John Huston after his success with "The Maltese Falcon."The story begins on November 17, 1941. Lt. Rick Leland (Humphrey Bogart) is being cashiered from the Army at Governor's Island, New York… The reasons are vague, but before five minutes have passed, Bogie is decked out in his familiar trenchcoat… Leland tries to enlist in the Canadian army, but his disgrace is so widespread that they won't have him… Wondering aloud if perhaps the Japanese will take him on, Leland buys a ticket on the 'Genoa Maru' bound for Yokohama via the Panama Canal… On board the freighter, Leland meets Alberta Marlow (Mary Astor), who lies about her past, and Dr. Lorenz (Sydney Greenstreet), a sociologist with an undisguised affinity for all things Japanese…It's really not spoiling anything to reveal that Leland is engaged in counterespionage because neither Huston nor the screenwriters take the material very seriously… For most of the film, they're more interested in the cutesy shipboard romance between Leland and Alberta—getting seasick, drunk, sunburned…As a thriller, the film doesn't really get wound up until the third act, when it has a few fine moments, most memorably a long chase scene in a Spanish-language movie theater, and a conventional conclusion… Sydney Greenstreet was excellent as a jovial yet cunning Japanese sympathizer and Mary Astor played a doubtful role with the same mental adroitness she had displayed in "The Maltese Falcon." Bogart, of course, carried the story line here and it was a delight to watch his enigmatic character change from one of calculated indifference to that of relentless determination...
13 out of 20 people found the following review useful: A Strange Title Since It's Set In The Atlantic, But A Nice Spy Caper, 11 August 2003 Author: sddavis63 (revsdd@gmail.com) from Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada
A good spy caper starring Humphrey Bogart as Rick Leland, a court-martialled US Army officer who finds himself in the middle of a nifty little bit of espionage work on board a Japanese freighter bound from Halifax to Yokohama via the Panama Canal just before the attack on Pearl Harbour. Surrounded by a rather suspicious group of characters, from his love interest Alberta Marlow (Mary Astor) to Dr. Lorenz (Sydney Greenstreet), Leland slowly uncovers a Japanese plot to attack the Canal Zone (presumably also on December 7) and sets himself to preventing it.This was a good performance by Bogart, along with good performances from Astor and Greenstreet. (For those not entirely familiar with Canadian geography, by the way, the pun is that Alberta claims to be from Medicine Hat, which is a small city in Alberta - almost TOO cute!) There's a fair amount of tension throughout as we struggle along with Leland to figure out exactly what's going on, and a nice climax as Leland foils the Japanese plan (Bogey had to win!) A couple of things I thought were worth noting, though. First of all, what's with the title? All the action in the movie takes place either on the Japanese freighter as it travels south down the ATLANTIC coast of North America or in the Panama Canal Zone (with some minor scenes in Halifax, where Leland is rejected by the Canadian Army, and in New York City, where he snoops for information.) The only Pacific connection to the movie is that the freighter was Japanese. And remember, of course, that this was made in 1942 (after Pearl Harbour.) The depiction of the Japanese isn't especially flattering (although I thought it was more a play on stereotypes than openly antagonistic), and the closing shot of the film is the wartime requisite showing off of American military strength.All in all, though, I enjoyed this movie immensely, and would highly recommend it.8/10
11 out of 17 people found the following review useful: A fine, but very flawed, definition of 40's Pulp, 1 September 2005 Author: joeblondiemonco
This serves as a nice companion piece to "The Maltese Falcon", but DON'T compare it the masterpiece or you won't enjoy it. Also, keep in mind, this was during the beginning of WWII (obviously), so expect your typical "all Japanese are evil" racial stereotypes. It is upsetting to see that films like these just heightened the US's paranoia, driving us to send everyone of Japanese descent to internment camps.You're going to really enjoy this film if you've seen modern Pulp adventures like the Indiana Jones trilogy or Sky Captain (though don't expect to see ANY mystical/sci-fi elements involved). This has it all: a hard-boiled hero, exotic locales, constant plot twists and turns, colorful villains, and a mysterious woman.Bogart, as (almost) always plays the same character he always plays. but boy, does he fit in SO well into this film. Mary Astor, while not the pretty face that she was built up to be here and in "The Maltese Falcon", gives another great performance, and unlike Bogart, she was always able to give characters in a similar vein (in this case, the mysterious woman), each their own personalities. Her Alberta Marlow is not at all like "schoolgirl" Brigid O'Shaughnessey, but (at least openly) tougher, a perfect match with Bogart during their exchanges of dialogue, while remaining to be extremely ambiguous, never making sure whether or not she's an ally or a femme fatale. When all is revealed, looking back on it things made perfect sense with her character's attitude.Sydney Greenstreet adds another great villain to his own rogues gallery. Here he's a man obsessed with Japanese culture and way of life, so much that he has become apart of and accepted by "the enemy". Victor Sen Young, who played a great shark grinned scumbag in "The Letter", does good here, looking very happy that he at least was able to speak coherently for once in a motion picture.Huston's direction is really worth looking at, especially visually stunning during a sequence at a movie theater. Without his obvious presence and Bogart, this film would have just been another propaganda story of espionage. Sadly, when he had to leave the film for war duty, the final scenes were shot by otherwise competent (but nothing special) director Vincent Sherman. The final 15 minutes seem extremely out of place with the rest of the film, and its a shame Huston wasn't around a little bit longer to round up what could have been a quintessential piece of a feature 40's pulp movie.Worth seeing, its a film that falls short of greatness, but man is it entertaining.
11 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Adventure+Astor+Bogart+John Huston=Entertainment, 10 November 2000 Author: marquis de cinema from Boston, MA
John Huston's second film reunited three of his key actors from The Maltese Falcon(1941). This war time thriller takes place before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Across the Pacific(1942) is about a disgraced solider who tries to redeem himself by acting as a spy for the US government. Humphrey Bogart plays the American spy, Rick Leland in his most cool and suave performance. Leland's mission is to prevent the Japanese from bombing the Panama Canal.Sydney Greenstreet as Dr. Lorenz gives a performance that's absolutely sinister. He would have made a perfect James Bond Villain had he lived during the 1950's. Across the Pacific(1942) is an entertaining motion picture that realisticly parallels the war that was occuring in the Pacific. Mary Astor is ravishing as the mysterious Alberta. Only the majority of the movie was completed for John Huston went off to join the war effort(another filmmaker involved with the film named Vincent Sherman ended up filming the final scenes).
14 out of 23 people found the following review useful: Maltese Albatross, 9 April 2002 Author: Robert J. Maxwell (rmax304823@yahoo.com) from Deming, New Mexico
This film is okay -- watchable and even interesting -- but one can't help comparing it to "The Maltese Falcon" which appeared the previous year. Same principle actors -- Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet -- no Peter Lorre fondling the handle of his cane, alas, and no gunsel -- and, for the most part, the same Director, John Huston. Huston was called up for Signal Corps duty halfway through filming and as a gag shot the scenes up to the point at which Bogart was strapped helplessly into a chair and sorrounded by armed guards, a situation seemingly without the possibility of escape. Then Huston cheerfully said goodbye and walked off the set, leaving his replacement, Vincent Sherman, to try to figure out how to get Bogart free. It may be unfair to compare "Across the Pacific" to a lucky shot like "The Maltese Falcon," but this film invites the comparison. Not just the same performers but similar lines -- "You're good, Angel, very, very good." But in Falcon the actors fit their fictional characters like enzymes accomodating themselves to a substrate. Here they are just actors playing familiar roles: the obese villain, the officer who's dishonerable discharge is faked so he can go undercover (Gary Cooper could have done as well, and in fact DID in a later movie), the innocent woman made to look bad because the enemy has imprisoned her dissolute father. The Japanese are all plain-vanilla bad guys, even the familiar young one who makes amusing wiscracks in American slang. And all the Japanese have real names like Tong, Chan, Loo, Fong, and Ahn. (To be fair, the last one is Korean, not Chinese.) If the characters are not nearly as much fun to watch as in "The Maltese Falcon," the plot is no more than a simple war-time mystery involving secret information that the Japanese want to use to start the war by torpedoing the locks of the Panama Canal. Actually, the Japanese did develop such plans later in the war. They intended to deliver a handful of torpedo planes to the vicinity of the Canal in huge submarines, which were available. The planes were not, and the plans folded when the war ended. In the movie, the characters move from New York to Canada, then board a Japanese steamer, back to New York, then to Panama, where they disembark. They travel from the Atlantic side of the canal to the Pacific -- but they never make it across the Pacific.
14 out of 23 people found the following review useful: Surprisingly nifty little espionage tale, 6 July 2000 Author: A-Ron-2 from Storrs, CT
Not one of Bogart's best films, but still pretty darn entertaining. I really love this movie and all its predictable twists and turns, its cheezey jingoism and its racial and gender stereotyping. Even though there are parts of this film that will probably be offensive to some of the more delicate modern viewers, it is still a rousing tale of espionage, murder, treason and heroism.I have watched ATP several times, and have enjoyed it thoroughly each time, looking past its warts and bumps to the heart of a fun pulp story acted out by some of my favorite actors (Bogey, Astor and Greenstreet). The essential plot, if I remember right, is that evil Japanese baddies want to blow up the Panama canal (with Greenstreet's help of course) and Bogey has to stop them. He meets a mysterious woman on a boat while supposedly going to work for Chiang Kai Scheck in China (strange little point to make) and has all kinds of strange encounters and adventures along the way, falling in love, saving the day, and fighting those evil Japs...By the way, the film actually does make a certain responsible choice to demonstrate that not all Japanese people are bad guys. It is sort of a week effort, but pretty surprising considering the mood in America when this film was being made.
10 out of 17 people found the following review useful: The Mysterious Girl From Medicine Hat, 4 August 2006 Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
Across the Pacific is minor league stuff in the careers of both John Huston and Humphrey Bogart. It's clearly made as a wartime propaganda film. It certainly doesn't compare to The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, or The African Queen. It doesn't even have the redeeming feature of campiness that Beat the Devil has. The film is a product of the time.That being said, it's certainly entertaining enough. On an action level it has more of it than The Maltese Falcon from which four cast members were retained. The four repeaters are Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, and John Hamilton.Bogart's not the existential private eye here. He's a cashiered army officer whose trial was really a fake. He's working undercover to find expose some Japanese American fifth columnists. His investigation takes him on a Japanese freighter that does carry passengers on the side. Two of those passengers are an Orientalist professor who teaches at the University of Manila, Sidney Greenstreet and a woman who claims to be from Medicine Hat, Mary Astor. Bogey spends the entire film trying to figure out not only what the dastardly scheme is, but just how Astor fits into it, because he's fallen for her.World War II was the greatest time for employment for oriental players except Japanese ones. A goodly group is in this film, Kam Tong, Philip Ahn, Keye Luke and most of all Victor Sen Yung. Until he played Hop Sing, Ben Cartwright's Chinese cook in Bonanza, Sen Yung was best known for being Charlie Chan's son under a few different Chans. But his role as Joe Tatsuito in this film was pretty good work also. Sen Yung is a hip, jive talking Nisei who is supposed to be a deadly killer. Since he's already identified as such before we actually meet him, there is an aura of menace about Sen Yung even when he's at his friendliest.Sidney Greenstreet as a scholar has become so immersed in Japanese culture and tradition that it has taken him right over the line into treason. Greenstreet is a talker like Casper Guttman in The Maltese Falcon, but in the end he can't walk the walk.What was also happening in 1942 was that we were interning Japanese civilians that year. I don't think Victor Sen Yung being Chinese himself and knowing what the Japanese were doing in the home of his ancestors had any qualms about portraying a man on screen that seemed to be the living justification for such a policy. I've never heard of Across the Pacific being discussed specifically as a propaganda piece for that policy. Nor do I ever remember John Huston ever being questioned about it. Not that he had anything to do with the decision for internment, but it would have been nice to hear his feelings on the subject vis a vis Across the Pacific.Huston didn't even stick around for the finish of Across the Pacific, it was completed under different hands. He went off to the service where he did some really fine documentaries that have stood the test of time.Better than Across the Pacific has.
5 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Bogart plays secret agent, 5 May 1999 Author: Patrick R. Pearsey (prp48@hotmail.com) from Indianapolis, IN.
"Across the Pacific" is a fairly well done spy movie that takes place in the last days before America's entry into World War II. Rick Leland (Humphrey Bogart) is cashiered from the U.S. Army for stealing funds. The events that follow involve a love interest (Mary Astor) and an enemy agent (Sydney Greenstreet) and a trip on a passenger ship from New York to the Panama Canal. Humphrey Bogart as an American spy is convincing in a role that might have been played by Sean Connery 20 years later.The subplot of a Japanese plot to torpedo the Panama Canal and put it out of action was a case of truth being stranger than fiction with the recent revelation of Japanese submarines which carried planes designed to knock the canal out, but which were never used. "Across the Pacific" has humor, action and romance and is one of Bogart's lesser known but very good movies.
8 out of 14 people found the following review useful: Bogie playing Bogie...only Peter Lorre is missing..., 9 April 2002 Author: Neil Doyle from U.S.A.
This is Humphrey Bogart the way his fans like him best--being pure Bogart and relishing his role the way he did Sam Spade in THE MALTESE FALCON. He has some crackling good dialogue to share with Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet and director John Huston keeps things moving at a lively pace with the usual amount of twists and turns.Only problem is this is one of those espionage tales full of hidden identities--a bit disconcerting considering how complicated the plot is. But after awhile that doesn't matter. What counts here is the great chemistry between Bogart and Astor, Bogart and Greenstreet, Bogart and Sen Young. In short, it's Bogey doing what he does best--and Greenstreet as well--with Bogart as the tough guy whose mission is to destroy a scheme by spies to blow up the Panama Canal. All of the shipboard scenes are great fun and played for comedy as well as drama. It has plenty of suspense along the way. Sen Young is especially good in a colorful supporting role. It's slam bang entertainment all the way.Of course, at the end, Bogey single-handedly destroys the enemy and is free to pursue the mysterious Mary Astor. At times it seems as though these are characters left over from THE MALTESE FALCON with Astor again playing a woman who just might be treacherous. The only ingredient missing among the supporting cast is Peter Lorre. For Bogart fans, this is a must see. John Huston had to leave toward the end of the shooting to go into war service. Filming was completed by Victor Sherman who took no credit for his work.
2 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Pearl Harbor was the original story's target, 4 April 2002 Author: bjameson from Philadelphia, PA
In the original story, published in the Saturday Evening Post before the US was thrust into WWII, the target for the Japanese was Pearl Harbor, not the Panama Canal. Real events forced the movie to change the target from one that the Japanese successfully attacked to one where Bogart could prevent a Japanese victory.
Add another review
